Eric Ollerenshaw
Main Page: Eric Ollerenshaw (Conservative - Lancaster and Fleetwood)(13 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)
May I declare an interest in this fascinating debate? Like the hon. Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley), I represent two universities and I want to lead the debate on to them.
Lancaster university is a multi-million pound business that reached the top 10 of English universities; indeed, last year it was top in performance in physics. It makes a massive contribution to Lancaster and the wider Lancashire economy and it hopes to develop and proceed in what it perceives as a global market. That point has not been mentioned tonight. It wants to provide the best tuition and facilities.
Before the election, the pressure for an increase in fees came from universities. The previous Government faced that issue by cutting a certain amount, which Lord Mandelson did, and, to be fair to them, by setting up the independent Browne review. There might be an argument about whether that was kicked into the long grass to prevent Lord Browne from saying anything before the election because Labour needed to compete in so many university seats, but I would not suggest that. Labour set up the review and waited for the report. As a result, the whole of the previous Cabinet did not sign up to the pledge, although many Labour MPs—116, I think—did. I went to university debates in my area and I did not sign the pledge, but every single opponent of my candidature did—except the British National party, but I do not think that it was offered the opportunity to sign, thank God.
That was the situation. Now, universities say that they want a system that can fund them. I do not want to go into the deficit argument, but I think we all accept that things are tight.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
Is my hon. Friend aware that 40 years ago there were 600,000 students in higher education, 20 years ago there were 1 million and today there are 2.4 million? That is a very good thing, but when there are such fundamental changes we have to think again, as we have on pensions and social care and as we are doing now on higher education.
Eric Ollerenshaw
And as we found out under the Labour Government, fees do not seem to hinder people wanting to go to good universities.
As an ex-teacher, the test for me is how we can increase social mobility. I shall repeat points that others have made, because they are important and they are being lost in the issue of marches and the encouragement by some Members of what they call direct action—something from the old days of the 1980s. That is the hypocritical line they are selling some students. At least we have maintained no up-front fees—as has been said by previous speakers. More important, a lot of students will pay far less in the future because the threshold has moved to £21,000, which is about £540 less.
Eric Ollerenshaw
May I finish this point?
It seems to me that what has been left out of the debate is the Government’s commitment to finding £150 million for a national scholarship scheme, and I congratulate Ministers on that. The coalition has been trying to do what the Labour Government talked about but never achieved—joined-up government, through our proposals for the pupil premium and for the national scholarship scheme. We are going even further, by demanding that universities that want to charge the highest rate should do much more—not just through scholarships, but through the work being done by charities and voluntary groups, such as the Social Mobility Foundation—to encourage pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds at least to try to aim a bit higher.
Eric Ollerenshaw
No, I want to finish this point and I have very little time.
The coalition is trying to deal with disadvantage not just in higher education, but in secondary and primary education. In these difficult times, we are attempting to make links between them and provide a world in which we have top-class education. Our top universities will still be competing with the best universities in the world, but with the increased involvement of children from disadvantaged backgrounds. That includes part-timers. Unlike the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock), I do not believe the scare stories about kicking down the ladders. We are trying to put up ladders in very difficult times.